Osprey
09-16-2003, 03:41 PM
This summer I began work on an Asian continent that lay east of Cerilia, across the Sea of Dragons. Not having heard of Djapar, this was inspired as the original ancestral home of the Basarji. I thought a Mongolian kind of land worked well for the ancestral birthplace of the Basarji.
I got inspired to make an Oriental Adventures Birthright setting, and why not across the Sea of Dragons? At least the basic metaphysics of the world will remain the same. I think I'll start a new thread in the library to detail this one.
Bloodlines exist, but they are based on actual couplings between deities and mortals, who then birth children with divine power in their blood. Strengths and purities of the blood are based partly on the power of the deific parent, but more on how recent the coupling was, and how pure subsequent generations have remained. Divine heritage is a powerful part of Asian mythology, and I thought it was exciting to think of a land where bloodlines were still being made, not just a relic of some 5000-year-old cataclysm.
My own campaign focused on Nippon [mythical Japan], inspired by Japanese mythology, Shinto, and the game of Bushido [still one of the best RPG's ever made for a mythical setting in feudal Japan, IMO; they even credit it as a major inspiration in 3.0 Oriental Adventures].
Given that Nippon is the land of "100 million gods," I decided that bloodline derivations were an open-ended range of possibilities - leaving room for immense creativity and possibilites for DM's and players designing bloodlines. I detailed the major deities (the greater Kami) and the breakdown of other types of kami (spirits/gods) for general guidelines in designing bloodlines and their derivative powers. The tough part was deciding what exactly a first generation child of a god and mortal would be (blooded? half-celestial? both?!?).
I wanted to post this in the interest of expanding the Birthright world and its possible applications. And if folks are interested, I might be willing to start typing this stuff up in computer format (rather than its current form on paper).
-Osprey
I got inspired to make an Oriental Adventures Birthright setting, and why not across the Sea of Dragons? At least the basic metaphysics of the world will remain the same. I think I'll start a new thread in the library to detail this one.
Bloodlines exist, but they are based on actual couplings between deities and mortals, who then birth children with divine power in their blood. Strengths and purities of the blood are based partly on the power of the deific parent, but more on how recent the coupling was, and how pure subsequent generations have remained. Divine heritage is a powerful part of Asian mythology, and I thought it was exciting to think of a land where bloodlines were still being made, not just a relic of some 5000-year-old cataclysm.
My own campaign focused on Nippon [mythical Japan], inspired by Japanese mythology, Shinto, and the game of Bushido [still one of the best RPG's ever made for a mythical setting in feudal Japan, IMO; they even credit it as a major inspiration in 3.0 Oriental Adventures].
Given that Nippon is the land of "100 million gods," I decided that bloodline derivations were an open-ended range of possibilities - leaving room for immense creativity and possibilites for DM's and players designing bloodlines. I detailed the major deities (the greater Kami) and the breakdown of other types of kami (spirits/gods) for general guidelines in designing bloodlines and their derivative powers. The tough part was deciding what exactly a first generation child of a god and mortal would be (blooded? half-celestial? both?!?).
I wanted to post this in the interest of expanding the Birthright world and its possible applications. And if folks are interested, I might be willing to start typing this stuff up in computer format (rather than its current form on paper).
-Osprey